


oh, glory, i think i see you 'round the bend

by regnant



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Any Ships Are Only Referenced Or Implied, Brother/Sister Incest, Canon Compliant, Canon Incest Pairings, Gen, Implied/Referenced Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Incest, In Which Arthur Knights Jaime, Knighthood, M/M, Pre-Canon, Rites of Passage, Sibling Incest, The Dayne Twin References Aren’t Canon But Other Than That
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 09:59:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17805893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regnant/pseuds/regnant
Summary: Jaime kills his first man, and learns what it means to live on afterward.





	oh, glory, i think i see you 'round the bend

**Author's Note:**

> _and i think i'd try any poison, get there in the end, oh, glory._
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> the metamorphosis of jaime lannister.

_Clean off._

It’s a phrase Arthur has never liked. Has always reminded him of what happens to men on the battlefield after the fighting is done, the stench of rot—and then, cauterized flesh. Jaime himself has retained all of his bodily strength, though. He is only less whole (if more complete) of mind after today: he has only lost the last of his innocence.

“Clean off.” Arthur repeats the words, this time for both of them to hear, even as countless traumas flash behind his eyes. He can still hear their screams. “Tell me, Jaime. Where did you learn to do a thing like that?”

Jaime’s eyes look significantly younger than they have much right to do as they flash at Arthur. “I _didn’t,_ ser.” His brows lower as though he’s concentrating on the memory, placing himself back into the moment. _Don’t make that a habit, Jaime._ “He moved toward me, and my feet, they knew knew where to go, not me, and before I could blink, he was... dead.”

 _His head was gone, you mean._ The boy is still delicate, for all the man he has become today. He’s barely touched the rabbit that they’ve skinned and cooked in celebration of what is to come. “I was there, Jaime.” Arthur’s voice is calm and reassuring. Though not quite paternal, it is warm all the same, like fresh-forged steel held for the first time. “I saw what happened.”

“It’s just that I... I had...” His cheeks are red with wind and stress, but they are not wet. He is brave. Arthur can commend him for that. “Hadn’t done it. Before.”

“Killed a man, you mean?” He chuckles; perhaps it is rude, and he does not mean to do it, but Jaime is silly to think him so unobservant. “Don’t you think I know that? There’s a first time for everyone, Jaime. He came at you. It was him or you, and that’s... that’s what battle is.” He catches the young man’s eyes before they flick back to the fire, studies the golden coins of light that dance in them as he gazes into it. Searching. _For what, I wonder?_ They are so like his father’s, but they hold such different things. “Are you sure a knighthood is what you truly want?”

“Yes.” His lips set into a grim line, and Arthur wonders whether Jaime or Tywin is truly speaking. After all, the world has only seen one of the two smile in recent memory. “ _Yes_.”

“Then allow me to impart an important lesson to you on this very special day.” He offers the smile that Jaime so cruelly denies himself, unfastening the sword and fallen star that hold his cloak around his shoulders. _The white wool will keep him warm,_ keep him calm, keep him safe. “Honor and valor are paramount, Jaime, but so is preservation of the self. It does not do to dwell in the moments that did not transpire as... cleanly as you might have willed them to do.”

He looks less forlorn with the cloak around his shoulders. Slightly. “How not?”

“You must look inside of yourself, Jaime, and find a different time, a different place to go.” Arthur nods. The words hold more meaning as he says them aloud than they had in his head. “Find your Rock, your pride, ser, your mother and father and brother. Find your sister.”

The spark returns to his eyes at the last word, and it’s only then that Arthur notices just how green they truly are. They are bright; flame or none, they burn. _For your twin, Jaime?_ He had looked almost this engaged on the battlefield. It’s queer—there is something familiar about the passion in the young man’s eyes, something sad and forbidden. There is a long silence as he considers what it means, where it may come from, and then he realizes just where he has seen it before.

In Ashara’s eyes, so large and bright, so very like his own.

This particular brand of passion is forbidden for a reason.

Arthur wants to reach out and shatter the tension of this moment. A young knight killing his first man, earning his title and the weight of a blade on his shoulders, there is something righteous and edifying in _that_. There should not be a camaraderie to this, though: no, not this, this is not a thing of which to speak with the sept in such clear view and Jaime’s vigil in such fresh memory, not the thing that he and his twin had kept secret even from each other for so many years—

_I should say something._

It’s not him who does, though, ultimately. “I’m—I’m no knight.” Jaime’s objection to the term of endearment—and should either of them fashion it as such so soon?—breaks the silence, but barely. Arthur isn’t sure if he even believes the words himself.

“No. _”_ Not to the rest of the world. _They have yet to see it._ He stands, unsheathing his greatsword and raising it into the waning sun that trickles toward them through the woven canopy of trees. White stars flicker over Jaime’s golden armor as Arthur steps over the fire toward him. A reflection, and another. Jaime rises halfway, falls again onto his bloodied knees, lets Arthur’s cloak pool around them. Dawn is clean and sharp and ready, and so is he. “Not yet.”


End file.
